The Alienist E-Book

Machado de Assis

• Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 84

Beschreibung

In "The Alienist" by Machado de Assis, Dr. Simão Bacamarte opens an asylum to study madness in the city of Itaguaí. Determined to understand the human mind, he interns several citizens, generating controversy and revolt. The story satirizes science, society and the boundaries between sanity and madness, culminating in a surprising twist.

Leseprobe

The Alienist

Machado de Assis

SYNOPSIS

In “The Alienist” by Machado de Assis, Dr. Simão Bacamarte opens an asylum to study madness in the city of Itaguaí. Determined to understand the human mind, he interns several citizens, generating controversy and revolt. The story satirizes science, society and the boundaries between sanity and madness, culminating in a surprising twist.

Palavras-chave

Madness, science, society.

Notice

This text is a work in the public domain and reflects the norms, values and perspectives of its time. Some readers may find parts of this content offensive or disturbing, given evolving social norms and our collective understanding of issues of equality, human rights and mutual respect. We ask readers to approach this material with an understanding of the historical era in which it was written, recognizing that it may contain language, ideas or descriptions that are incompatible with today's ethical and moral standards.

Foreign language names will be preserved in their original form, without translation.

CHAPTER I - HOW ITAGUAÍ WON A HOUSE OF ORATES

The chronicles of the town of Itaguaí say that in ancient times a certain doctor lived there, Dr. Simão Bacamarte, son of the nobility of the land and the greatest doctor in Brazil, Portugal, and Spain. He had studied in Coimbra and Padua. At the age of 34, he returned to Brazil, and the king couldn't get him to stay in Coimbra, running the university, or in Lisbon, dealing with the monarchy's affairs.

"Science," he told His Majesty, "is my only job; Itaguaí is my universe."

Having said that, he went to Itaguaí and gave himself body and soul to the study of science, alternating cures with reading and demonstrating theorems with poultices. At the age of forty, he married D. Evarista da Costa e Mascarenhas, a twenty-five-year-old lady, the widow of a judge from outside, and neither pretty nor nice. One of his uncles, a paca hunter before the Eternal, and no less outspoken, marveled at such a choice and told him so. Simão Bacamarte explained to him that Mrs. Evarista had first-rate physiological and anatomical conditions; she digested easily, slept regularly, had a good pulse and excellent eyesight; she was therefore fit to give him robust, healthy, and intelligent children. If, in addition to these gifts - the only ones worthy of a wise man's concern - Mrs. Evarista was poorly made up, far from regretting it, he thanked God, because he was not in danger of neglecting the interests of science in the exclusive, petty, and vulgar contemplation of his consort.

Mrs. Evarista lied to Dr. Bacamarte's hopes; she didn't give him robust or moldy children. The natural nature of science is long-suffering; our doctor waited three years, then four, then five. At the end of that time, he made a thorough study of the subject, re-read all the Arabic and other writers he had brought to Itaguaí, sent consultations to Italian and German universities, and ended up advising his wife on a special dietary regime. The illustrious lady, nourished exclusively with the fine pork of Itaguaí, did not heed her husband's admonitions; and to her resistance - explicable, but unspeakable - we owe the total extinction of the Bacamartes dynasty.

But science has the ineffable gift of healing all sorrows; our doctor immersed himself entirely in the study and practice of medicine. It was then that one of its corners caught his attention in particular - the psychic corner, the examination of brain pathology. There wasn't a single authority in the colony, or even in the kingdom, on this subject, which was barely explored or almost unexplored. Simão Bacamarte understood that Lusitanian science, and particularly Brazilian science, could cover itself with “unparalleled laurels” - an expression he used himself, but in a burst of domestic intimacy; outwardly he was modest, as befits those in the know.

"To the health of the soul," he shouted, "and to the worthiest occupation of the doctor."

"The real doctor," added Crispim Soares, the town's apothecary and one of his friends and diners.

The Itaguaí town council, among other sins of which it is accused by chroniclers, had the sin of not paying attention to the insane. So every raving lunatic was locked up in an alcove in his own house and not cured, but neglected, until death came to cheat him of the benefit of life; the meek roamed the streets. Simão Bacamarte immediately decided to reform this bad custom; he asked the City Council for permission to house and treat all the madmen from Itaguaí and the other towns and cities in the building he was going to build, for a stipend, which the Council would give him when the sick person's family was unable to do so. The proposal aroused the curiosity of the whole town and met with great resistance, so certain is it that it is difficult to uproot absurd or even bad habits. The idea of putting the mad in the same house, living together, seemed in itself to be a symptom of dementia, and there was no shortage of people who suggested it to the doctor's wife.

"Look, Mrs. Evarista," said Father Lopes, the local vicar, "see if your husband will take a trip to Rio de Janeiro. Studying all the time isn't good, it turns your mind off."

Mrs. Evarista was terrified, went to her husband, and told him “That she had some desires", one in particular, to come to Rio de Janeiro and eat everything that seemed appropriate for a certain purpose. But that great man, with the rare sagacity that distinguished him, understood his wife's intention and smilingly told her not to be afraid. From there he went to the town hall, where the councilors were debating the proposal, and defended it with such eloquence that the majority decided to authorize him to do what he had asked, voting at the same time for a tax to subsidize the treatment, accommodation, and maintenance of the poor insane. The subject of the tax was not easy to find; everything was taxed in Itaguaí. After lengthy studies, it was decided to allow the use of two pennants on horses for burials. Anyone who wanted to feather the horses of a mortuary coach would pay two pennies to the town hall, and this amount would be repeated as many times as the hours elapsed between the death and the last blessing on the grave. The clerk got lost in the arithmetic calculations of the possible income from the new tax; and one of the councilors, who didn't believe in the doctor's enterprise, asked that the clerk be relieved of his useless work.

"The calculations aren't accurate," he said, "because Dr. Bacamarte can't come up with anything. Who saw it coming to put all the crazy people in the same house?"

The worthy magistrate was wrong; the doctor fixed everything. Once he had his license, he immediately started building the house. It was on Rua Nova, the most beautiful street in Itaguaí at the time. It had fifty windows per side, a courtyard in the center, and numerous cubicles for guests. As he was a great Arabist, he found in the Koran that Mohammed declared the insane venerable, on the grounds that Allah takes away their senses so that they don't sin. The idea struck him as beautiful and profound, and he had it engraved on the frontispiece of the house; but, as he was afraid of the vicar, and therefore of the bishop, he attributed the thought to Benedict VIII, and with this fraud he deserved to have Father Lopes tell him, over lunch, about the life of that eminent pontiff.

The Green House was the name given to the asylum, alluding to the color of the windows, which for the first time appeared green in Itaguaí. It was inaugurated with immense pomp; from all the nearby and even remote villages and towns, and from the city of Rio de Janeiro itself, people flocked to attend the ceremonies, which lasted seven days. Many of the demented had already been taken into care, and their relatives had the opportunity to see the paternal affection and Christian charity with which they were being treated. Evarista, overjoyed at her husband's glory, dressed lavishly, covered herself in jewels, flowers, and silks. She was a true queen in those memorable days; no one failed to visit her two or three times, despite the homely and modest customs of the century, and they not only courted her but praised her; because - and this fact is a highly honorable document for the society of the time - they saw in her the happy wife of a high spirit, of an illustrious man, and if they envied her, it was the holy and noble envy of her admirers.

After seven days, the public festivities ended; Itaguaí finally had a house of orates.

CHAPTER II - TORRENTS OF MADMEN

Three days later, in an intimate discussion with the apothecary Crispim Soares, the alienist revealed the mystery of his heart.

"Charity, Mr. Soares, certainly enters into my procedure, but it enters as a seasoning, as the salt of things, which is how I interpret St. Paul's saying to the Corinthians: 'If I know as much as can be known, and have not charity, I am nothing.' The main thing in my work at the Green House is to study madness in depth, its various degrees, classify its cases, and finally discover the cause of the phenomenon and the universal remedy. This is the mystery of my heart. I believe that this is a good service to humanity."

"An excellent service," corrected the apothecary.

"Without this asylum," continued the alienist, "I could do very little, but it gives me much more scope for my studies."

"Much greater," added the other.

And he was right. From all the neighboring towns and villages, madmen flocked to the Green House. They were furious, they were meek, they were monomaniacs, they were the whole family of the spiritually disinherited. After four months, Green House was a village. The first cubicles weren't enough; a gallery of thirty-seven more was added. Father Lopes confessed that he hadn't imagined there were so many crazy people in the world, let alone the inexplicable nature of some cases. One, for example, was a bronco and villainous boy who, every day after lunch, regularly gave an academic speech, adorned with tropes, antitheses, and apostrophes, with his recitations of Greek and Latin, and his tassels of Cicero, Apuleius, and Tertullian. The vicar didn't want to stop believing.

"What! A boy he'd seen playing shuttlecock in the street three months earlier!"

"I'm not saying no," the alienist replied, "but the truth is what you're seeing. This happens every day."

"As far as I'm concerned," said the vicar, "it can only be explained by the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel, as the Scriptures tell us; probably, since languages were confused in the past, it's easy to change them now, as long as reason doesn't work?"